Well, Back To The Old Drawing Board

In today's blog post, the role of Marvin the Martian will be played by the Arizona Cardinals. See, Arizona just gave up 56 points to the Jets, so I'd say Whisenhunt's idea about staying on the East Coast this week, rather than flying back to Arizona after the Redskins' game, could probably be considered a bust.

- Or maybe it has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with Warner, who threw 3 picks, and lost 3 fumbles to boot. The fumbles bother me more than the interceptions, because fumbles mean Kurt's back to holding onto the ball too long, which I usually interpret to mean he's getting shell-shocked*.

- Tooling around on Football-Reference, found depressing statistic: In the time I've been an Arizona Cardinals fan, they've only had 1 QB with a winning record in games started. I'm not surprised, the Cardinals have been terrible for almost the entirety of that stretch, but still. 1 out of 16, and it's Jay Schroeder of all people, who in 1994, who went 5-3. I'm not giving him credit for that, though, not with 4 TDs and 7 INTs, anymore than I'm blaming Jake for his 30-52 record. Well, I'm blaming Jake for some of those, especially in '99 and '00. His TD/INT ratio those years was 9/24 and 13/21, fer pete's sake! There's no way he isn't at least partially at fault for being 6-19 those years!

- In other news, I was all set to do a end of the baseball season post, complete with discussion of postseason matchups, and any milestones reached this year. But the White Sox and Twins both decided they'd actually like to win today, and so we have to wait to see how Detroit at Chicago plays out tomorrow. I figure I've the aforementioned post, which I might break into one post about the postseason and one post about milestones, then a Cardinals' season retrospective.

- It's not all bad news. The NL Wild Card did shake out today, with the Brewers getting in, and the Mets crashing and burning a second year in a row. *Dances merry jig* I suppose it's poor form, enjoying the failures of the Mets, but I was raised to love the Cardinals and hate the Mets (it was the '80s, they were rivals), even if the Metropolitans are no longer the coked up bat corkers (Howard Johnson) they were back in the day. In comparison, while I have no love for the Brewers, I have no real hate for them either, which I guess means I was rooting for them by default. Probably doesn't matter. Both teams' good pitchers have got to be gassed right now.

- Still, I can't help looking at the game of hot potato the Mets and Brew Crew played with the Wild Card, then look at the Cardinals and say, "Damn, if only we hadn't gone 7-10 against the Pirates!" Sure, going 6-9 against the Cubs, and 5-10 against Milwaukee didn't help, but you could at least sort of excuse that on the grounds that they were better teams, according to their records at least**. But a losing record against freaking Pittsburgh?! Ugh.

- By the by, does anyone know the reason why MLB won't let a wild card play the winner of their division in the first round of the playoffs. Hardly seems fair that the Angels, who won their (crappy) division, and locked up the best record have to face the, minimum, 94 win Red Sox, rather than the 88-win Central winner, just because Boston and Tampa are in the same division. Then again, just about anything can happen in a short series, so maybe the Angels will wind up being happy they drew Boston.

- Also, if it's all the same to you, let's just assume that, had Houston and the Cubs made up that game tomorrow (or that it had been played when originally scheduled), the Astros would have lost, thus giving them and the Cardinals the same record, and award the Cardinals 3rd place in the Central on the grounds they won the season series, 8-7, 'kay? Fantastic.

* It's odd. Most QBs, when they take a lot of hits, start "hearing footsteps", and running for their lives, throwing the ball away, and generally giving up on plays before they need to. Warner seems to go the opposite direction, like he's hearing footsteps, but thinks it's just his nerves, and so he resists the urge to bail out. He might want to start listening to that survival instinct a little more.

** With the Cubs, there's no doubt they're better, but the way the Brewers have staggered to the finish line, I'm not so sure they are better. I'm certainly not sure right now, when Ben Sheets says he has a "broke arm", when C.C. has got to be reaching his limit (doesn't he?), when their bullpen looks about as lousy as the Mets, and their defense is just bad.